Ahead of the event, attendees participated in a survey around their corporate landscapes, business priorities, planned solution implementations and more. The survey results represented views across 15 different industries.

All surveyed respondents currently own and use SAP ERP systems, but some have larger footprints than others:

• 50% of the respondents have 0-4 live SAP systems
• 31% have 5-10 live SAP systems
• 19% have 10+ live SAP systems

When asked about top Central Finance goals, surveyed respondents selected:

• Finance/Business Transformation (91%)
• Central Finance as a Stepping Stone to S/4 (62%)
• Process Centralization (53%)
• Application/System Consolidation (50%)

When asked about how their organization handles data harmonization:*

• 44% claimed to have a high data harmonization level
• 32% claimed to have a medium data harmonization level
• 21% claimed they have a low data harmonization level

*Learn how Magnitude’s solutions can help with this

View the full survey findings in the infographic below.

Interested in learning how to integrate non-SAP ERP data into your SAP S/4HANA Central Finance implementation? Magnitude can help! Magnitude SourceConnect solutions are globally available through SAP as SAP Solution Extensions:

• SAP Central Finance Transaction Replication by Magnitude for SAP S/4HANA
• SAP Central Finance Data Harmonization application by Magnitude for SAP S/4HANA

Learn more about Magnitude’s financial solutions for SAP-run businesses here or visit our Central Finance resource library for more advice and solution insight.

Looking to get more involved in the SAP Central Finance community? Join the dedicated LinkedIn group to join the conversation.

The post SAP Central Finance Exchange: Customer Insights 2020 appeared first on Magnitude.

So, our gift to you – a classic post from years past (and one of this blog’s most popular posts ever), a closer look at how Santa Claus manages the most difficult supply chain of all. 

From everyone at Magnitude: Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and Peace on Earth.

If you’ve spent the last year battling with the challenges of creating a world class supply chain, one able to meet the demands of the modern consumer, and are now looking forward to a well-earned break, spare a thought for the big man in red and his annual supply chain challenges.

Billions of finished products, a D2C (Door to Chimney) delivery model to a truly global set of customers who demand 100% Perfect Order Fulfilment – Santa faces a supply chain challenge that would have Amazon stumped. Take into account that he’s also permanently short staffed (average Elf height = 18”), has a single central distribution center located thousands of miles from most of the customers (for tax reasons – the North Pole has a generous corporation tax rate of Zero), relies on a purely organic (but slightly smelly) logistics workforce without any warehouse robotics, drones or autonomous trucks, and Bezos and the rest of the Gartner Top 25 would be waving the white flag.

It all started with the forecast…

Just imagine the number of real-time data capture points required to build a demand forecast which can continually monitor and update a child’s present qualification criteria (aka the Naughty or Nice list), and react to a vast number of last minute changes on Christmas Eve, caused by parents across the world changing the criteria to improve their level of Child Bedroom Compliance. There must be some serious big data analysis going on at head office for such flawless OTIF figures to be achieved. This information, combined with the specialist intel coming in from Santa’s shopping mall army and a whole series of personal, knee top VotC (Voice of the Child) consumer insight capture points at Grottos worldwide, provides the perfect harmony between big and small data. The elves in charge of this operation really earn their Christmas bonus.

An amazing production facility

As ‘Buddy the Elf’ so painfully demonstrates, the speed at which elves can assemble and build toys puts Tesla’s robotic mega factory and the latest 3D printing technology to shame. With a growing population to serve and a demand forecast that fluctuates right up until the end of the year, Santa’s workshop needs to produce over 20 million finished goods per day, every day of the year in order to meet the Xmas demand. Talk about a seasonal peak! We can only imagine the number of candy canes that are gobbled up by elves to provide the sustenance and energy they require to get the job done. To date, they’ve never let Santa down. Must be on a permanent sugar rush.

Magical delivery…

One night, approximately 510,000,000 kilometers travelled and 1.9 billion happy customers on Christmas morning – this truly is a magical delivery service. Even with the ability to leverage the different time zones, creating a 31-hour delivery window, Santa’s HQ must have some serious bespoke route planning software. Like most modern distributors, progress can be tracked via GPS, but in Santa’s case he recruits the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) to track his progress so the children can see where he is on his route at any point in time.

Rudolph and the gang don’t want to travel more mile than necessary so the prep that goes into route planning is nothing short of astonishing. The IT team must get nervous this time of year and pray their IT infrastructure can manage the intense workloads coming their way. It’s a good thing that the sub-zero temperatures at the North Pole keep their servers running cool.

While we can’t promise to help you improve your supply chain’s operational performance to Santa like levels, our analytical software is used by some of the world’s best and largest brands to keep their supply chain in tip-top condition. Whether you need to improve the level of customer service, reduce lead times, optimize inventory, manage data or simply reduce waste and excess costs, Every Angle can empower your team to understand what is happening in your supply chain and why. For more information about how Every Angle empowers businesses worldwide, click here.

Finally, everyone at Magnitude would like to wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. And as your family opens their presents on Christmas morning, remember what had to be arranged to make it happen.  ;-)

The post Santa: Deconstructing The World’s Best Supply Chain appeared first on Magnitude.

As business intelligence tools, data warehousing solutions and enterprise data and application landscapes have advanced, it’s worth taking the time to rethink the old way of doing things. In the white paper–Guide to Modernizing Operational Reporting & Strategic Analytics in the SAP-Run Enterprise, we examine the dichotomy between operational reporting and strategic analytics, plus how they can work together to help organizations achieve real-time reporting and uncover relevant business insights.

Key topics: 

• Understand why taking advantage of reporting and analytics tools and implementing BI in the traditional manner requires a near-constant involvement from the IT staff.
• Discuss how modern BI shifts the focus away from IT and offers mainstream tools with self-service access and flexibility so that business users can produce reports and analysis on the fly.
• Review how Magnitude Every Angle for SAP provides analytical power that enables your team to analyze, combine and interrogate information from across the value chain, because it uniquely understands the way your SAP system is configured.

Modern BI needs to bridge the gap between operational reporting and strategic analytics to deliver business insights that allow you to respond faster and with greater confidence.

Magnitude Every Angle transforms and enhances your organization’s SAP data, turning it into simple-to-use, actionable insight. It puts the power of prescriptive analytics into the hands of the people who need it most – the business users.

Read the white paper for more insights and learn more about Every Angle solutions here.

The post Guide to Modernizing Operational Reporting & Strategic Analytics in the SAP-Run Enterprise appeared first on Magnitude.

In a time marked by the need to adjust to a volatile market and supply chain uncertainties, companies require actionable insights to contend with competitors more than ever. While the data stored in your ERP system can help make informed decisions, it’s that very data that is the toughest to unlock.

Magnitude’s Darren Peirce, CTO and VP of Product, and Dean Ansermoz, Director of Product Management, presented on this topic at the UK Oracle User Group. The session focused on maximizing Oracle data and driving business intelligence value from ERP systems to generate actionable insights – an initiative that, without the right strategy and tools, can be time-consuming, expensive and ultimately unsuccessful.

According to Peirce: “While BI can do a lot, it’s only as good as the ingredients you put into it. Where is the business knowledge that’s essential to combine with the data and the systems to arrive at insights and knowledge?”

Ansermoz also notes that complex ERP systems hinder self-service reporting and analysis for business users, plus heavy reliance on IT causes data access delays and user frustration. He shared insights on the most successful approaches for turning such enterprise data into insights, highlighting the need for real-time reporting and deep business insights to provide continuous intelligence for your enterprise.

Watch the on-demand replay to:

• Understand the state of business intelligence today and consider what’s so “intelligent” about BI
• Explore the challenges of accessing EBS data to make actionable decisions
• Learn how to deliver real insight from your Oracle data into your BI tool with real-world examples

As an Oracle Gold Partner, Magnitude Noetix gives enterprises using Oracle Business Applications the power of continuous operational insights. Noetix’s powerful data model, library of pre-built, no-code business reports and powerful process analytics engine help you unlock the power of your enterprise data and gain actionable insights to act with decisiveness in an uncertain and quickly changing world.

Learn more about our solutions for Oracle-run businesses here.

The post Maximizing Oracle Data to Drive Business Intelligence Value appeared first on Magnitude.

As an industry leader, Magnitude is deeply conversant with the front-line business environment occupied by SAP users, including the types of tasks they face and the associated challenges and opportunities. That immersion in the business needs of SAP users is what inspired the Magnitude Process Runner RPA Tool Set, a native platform for automating routine SAP processes. The tool set includes more than 1,600 built-in templates—considerably more than anyone else in the industry—to execute predefined work on production SAP platforms.

In the white paper, Streamline SAP Business Processes with Robotic Process Automation

we break down how RPA helps modernize business operations, optimized by a unique level of advanced technologies specifically created for SAP.

Key topics:

• Identifying the processes that require routine tasks that occupy significant human capital
• How RPA automates repetitive jobs using software “bots” that carry out tasks in the same way a human would
• Developing an RPA practice and selecting the right platform
• Insights from a real Magnitude Process Runner RPA customer success story

RPA digitally transforms the way businesses operate by eliminating repetitive, error-prone tasks so employees can apply themselves to higher-value work. Magnitude RPA incorporates an extensive range of SAP-specific technologies that make the tool set more powerful and easier to use – all built for business users acting independent of IT.

Learn more about process automation solutions for SAP.

The post Streamline SAP Business Processes with Robotic Process Automation appeared first on Magnitude.

Magnitude presented two live sessions (both available on demand). The first – led by Magnitude Z Option GLSU customer – Newall Brands, catered to finance users looking to close the books faster and more efficiently. The second session led by SAP’s Central Finance solution owner – Carsten Hilker, covered the otherwise-complicated integration of third-party data into SAP Central Finance.

Key Session Highlights

Learn How Newell Brands Improves the Business User Experience by Gaining Efficiency in their Finance Processes

Laura Petrie, Newell Brands | Tim Curtin, Z Option

Newell Brands’ Laura Petrie joined Tim Curtin to share why her team decided to leave their custom program behind and switch to Magnitude GLSU. She also outlined her favorite features, applauding the fact that “GLSU’s validation feature provides users with errors prior to posting, which takes the burden of error resolution off of IT.”

Watch the on-demand replay to:

• Learn how to improve the business user experience resulting in increased efficiency and productivity
• Leverage existing skills with a productivity tool owned by the finance department, eliminating extensive training
• Gain access to new ideas to streamline the financial close process and relieve stress from the finance team

How to Address 3rd Party Data Requirements in your SAP Central Finance Deployment

John Hume, Magnitude | Doug Corpuel, Magnitude | Carsten Hilker, SAP

In this session, Magnitude speakers shared recommendations for a speedy and successful central finance deployment. Specifically, John Hume offered his tips for overcoming the common challenges encountered when integrating transactional financial data from both SAP and 3rd-party ERP sources, noting that, “Now you have a couple of solution extensions to solve this complexity in a very graceful manner.”

Watch the on-demand replay to:

• Understand the business benefits that SAP S/4HANA Central Finance can bring to your organization
• Examine the complexities of building a solution for Central Finance and get expert advice for enabling agile, intelligent finance operations
• Explore the benefits of enabling intelligent data integration for Central Finance to improve efficiency and effectiveness

Looking to get more involved in the SAP Central Finance community? Join the dedicated LinkedIn group to join the conversation.

Learn more about Magnitude’s financial solutions for SAP-run businesses here or visit our Central Finance resource library for more advice and solution insight.

The post Lessons for Driving Business Transformation with Intelligent Finance appeared first on Magnitude.

OATUG Forum Live will be streaming worldwide on December 7 – 11, 2020.  The virtual event reunites the Oracle user community for education and networking, including transformative thought-leader sessions led by Oracle E-Business Suite tools and technology experts to uncover your business and IT strategy. Register here or view the full agenda here.

Magnitude Noetix’s powerful data model, library of pre-built business reports and process analytics engine help enterprises unlock the value of their data and gain actionable insights to run their business. Specifically, our latest Noetix 7 adds integrations for Oracle Cloud Applications, provides support for cloud data warehouses, and unifies the Noetix suite around an intuitive new user interface, giving customers operational reporting and rapid insights across a broad range of Oracle on-premises and cloud applications from a single portal.

Featured Magnitude Sessions

Transform Oracle Data Into Actionable Insights

Wednesday December 9 | 9:00 am – 9:25 am PST

Speakers:

• Darren Peirce, CTO & VP Products
• Dean Ansermoz, Director, Product Management
• Chad Cosper, Senior Product Marketing Manager

Let’s face it. With the volatility of the market and increasing uncertainties that arise within your supply chain, you need actionable insights to contend with competitors spurred on by digital transformation efforts. The valuable data stored in your ERP system can help you make informed decisions, but, that data is the toughest to unlock. Getting the insights you need is a slow, complex, and expensive project – and your BI tool is only as intelligent as the business acumen your organization can deliver to it. What you need is both a view of what is happening in the cockpit of the plane you are flying AND a flight plan. In other words, you need real-time reporting and deep business insights to provide continuous intelligence for your enterprise.

In this session, our speakers will address:

• The state of Business Intelligence; What’s so “intelligent” about BI anyway?
• The challenges of accessing EBS data to make actionable decisions
• How to delivers real insight from your Oracle data into your BI tool

 Mastering Oracle Subledger Accounting (SLA) for EBS R12 Reporting and Analysis

Wednesday December 9 | 2:00pm – 2:25pm PST

Speakers

• Dean Ansermoz, Director, Product Management
• Al Tietz, Sales Consultant
• Chad Cosper, Senior Product Marketing Manager

With the release of R12 and the introduction of SLA came many beneficial changes that centralized the accounting engine.  Although the change gave accounting departments more control over the accounting of transactions, it also created challenges with account analysis and reconciliation.  Still today, many organizations on EBS R12 struggle with how to give their users real-time, efficient access to the underlying transactions that have been posted to the GL with the critical cross-referenced, in-line subledger details they need to explain account balances, variances, and outliers in complete detail.

Does your organization have the business insights needed to outthink and outmaneuver the competition? Watch our Noetix 7 video to learn how we’re helping organizations see more clearly and act more decisively.

The post Empowering Oracle Business Users to See More Clearly appeared first on Magnitude.

As such, many companies find themselves in this data rich but insight poor predicament, prompting us to rethink that old BI model. In the white paper “Bridging the Gap Between Operational Reporting and Strategic Analytics” we propose a new way to derive meaningful business insights – specifically from Oracle Business Applications.

Key topics: 

• Why traditional BI – which requires near-constant involvement from IT staff and a complex IT environment – isn’t working
• Modern BI needs to bridge the gap between operational reporting and strategic analytics to deliver business insights that allow you to respond faster and with greater confidence
• Key BI platform characteristics include integration, intelligence and ease-of-use
• Magnitude Noetix enables enterprises using Oracle Business Applications to achieve real-time reporting and deeper business insights

There is a clear difference between operational reporting and BI, but they can and should work together. Magnitude Noetix’s integrated platform delivers a powerful data model, library of pre-built, no-code business reports and robust process analytics engine to help you unlock the power of your enterprise data and gain actionable insights to act with decisiveness in an uncertain and quickly changing world.

Traditional BI is dead. Start thinking for the future and seeing more clearly with Noetix 7.

Read our white paper for more insights.

The post Bridge the Gap Between Operational Reporting and Strategic Analytics appeared first on Magnitude.

SAPinsider’s research analyst Pierce Owen recently sat down with our Simon West, CMO and Darren Pierce, CTO, to exchange ideas on the future of analytics and automation for ERP systems.

Many business users can quickly find issues in their data thanks to analytics tools, but it can then take an inordinate amount of time for them to clean or redefine master data or clean up polluted sales or purchase orders.

The article specifically highlights a Magnitude customer success story:

“A major beer producer in Europe had inaccurate and outdated sales and purchase orders in its ERP systems. This messed up MRP runs because the MRP process allocated inventory for the polluting orders. The beer producer now uses Magnitude Every Angle operational analytics to identify the polluted orders and can clean them up with minimal effort with Magnitude Innowera Process Runner. This means that the ERP systems can run MRP processes much more predictably and accurately, and it has cleaned up inventory with less dead stock.”

By integrating operational analytics with process automation, organizations can quickly react to insights unsurfaced by analytics and address issues.

Read the full article on SAPinsider’s platform for guidance on key trends in self-service operational analytics and automated data management within SAP, including:

• Implementing self-service analytics tools
• Evaluating the different applications and potential value of analytics and automation
• Integrating operational analytics with process automation

To dig deeper on how to get from insights to action, visit our resource library.

The post Translating Data into Insights with Magnitude appeared first on Magnitude.

SAPinsider Supply Chain Summit takes place on November 17-18, 2020. The two-day virtual LIVE experience and on-demand offers access to over 40 actionable roadmaps, case studies, collaboration, and solution sessions. Register here for your free pass.

SAPinsider 2020 EMEA Virtual Conference Experience takes place on November 17-19, 2020. The virtual event encompasses four different programs:  Financials, GRC, S/4HANA and Platform and Technology. Register here for your free pass.

Achieve deeper automation of repetitive and complex SAP tasks with Robotic Process Automation for SAP from Magnitude Innowera Process Runner. Our time-tested design tool combines Robotic Process Automation’s (RPA) use of AI with SAP and other enterprise related tasks to improve the effectiveness and accuracy of your tasks and processes – while lowering costs.

Magnitude Every Angle delivers self-service analytics, providing end-to-end insight, understanding, and transparency across your SAP value chain; enriching organizations with actionable insight to understand, control and improve the performance of SAP. Magnitude Every Angle allows teams to detect bottlenecks, identify root causes of issues and provides end users with action lists to take appropriate and responsive actions throughout the entire supply chain.

For accounting teams looking to close the books faster and more efficiently, Magnitude Z Option GLSU makes it easy for finance users to automate their everyday FICO processes utilizing Excel, resulting in improved data quality and increased productivity.

Find out how we’re enabling fast, low cost and low-risk integration of third-party data and master data into SAP Central Finance by streamlining the data integration process with our Magnitude SourceConnect offerings now available globally through SAP as Solution Extensions:

• SAP Central Finance Transaction Replication by Magnitude for SAP S/4HANA
• SAP Central Finance Data Harmonization application by Magnitude for SAP S/4HANA

Featured Live Sessions: 

Audit and Risk Management: Plug & Play for SAP ERP (GRC) 

Wednesday, November 18 | 8:00 AM ET

Speakers:

• Richard den Ouden, Director Business Development, Magnitude Every Angle 

It’s a volatile time to be in business. Not only is there more pressure on people and processes caused by constant technological disruption, but we are also now living in a world of ever-increasing risk, legislation, and regulation.

Magnitude Every Angle has long helped companies to understand the root causes of issues and bottlenecks in service, as well as driving dramatic improvements in data quality. EA4GRC, a “plug-and-play” module for Governance, Risk and Compliance, applies Magnitude Every Angle’s unique capability to provide actionable insights to financial processes in order to control risk.

In this session, we will demonstrate how this solution can be used to:

• Provide transparency for key operational processes subject to risk
• Control, analyze, and improve business processes that require audit and risk management
• Ensure continuous process control on key daily activities

Control Journal Entry Uploading Processes and Achieve a Better End-User Experience (Financials) 

Wednesday, November 18 | 11:00 AM ET 

Speakers:

• Tim Curtin, Solution Specialist, Magnitude Z Option

Leading accounting and finance departments are continuously looking to automate, streamline, and improve business processes without adding complexity to their operations. They want to eliminate cumbersome manual processes that consume significant time and effort. And home-grown upload solutions tend to be very limited, lacking flexibility and requiring IT support, slowing down productivity. Magnitude Z Option GLSU is process automation for SAP Finance. GLSU incorporates business logic for intelligent automation and empowers users to manage and post SAP transactions from within a familiar application, saving time, and money.

Attend this session to:

• Learn how utilizing an Excel-based tool to automate finance processes can speed up the close process
• Discover how streamlining day-to-day business tasks can improve efficiency and productivity
• Access tips and tricks to navigate the financial close process and relieve stress from the Finance team

Preparing Third-Party Applications for Interface into SAP S/4HANA for Central Finance (S/4HANA) 

Wednesday, November 18 | 2:00 PM ET 

Speakers:

• John Hume, Solution Consulting Leader, Magnitude SourceConnect

Are you considering a move to SAP S/4HANA for Central Finance? Does your plan fully address how to integrate your existing non-SAP source system data into your Central Finance implementation? Discover how adding SAP Central Finance Transaction Replication Application by Magnitude for SAP S/4HANA can facilitate and accelerate data integration for your move to Central Finance. This session will offer expert insights into overcoming the common challenges encountered when integrating financial data such as transaction detail, error handling, and reconciliation, and will prepare your team for the road ahead to a successful central finance deployment. By attending, you will:

• Examine the complexities of building a solution for Central Finance and receive expert advice for enabling agile, intelligent finance operations
• Explore the benefits of enabling intelligent data integration for Central Finance to improve efficiency and effectiveness
• Discover how to integrate transactional data into SAP S/4HANA for Central Finance utilizing an SAP solution extension to reduce cost and risk
• Review recommendations that will help you achieve a speedy and successful Central Finance implementation
• Understand how live SAP Central Finance customers have leveraged pre-built connectors to integrate detailed transactions from both SAP and third-party sources

Featured Live Sessions: 

Drive Productivity with Intelligent RPA 

Wednesday, November 18 | 11:00 AM ET

Speakers:

• Jeremy Buckmier, Business Solution Specialist, Magnitude Innowera
• Ted Shingleton, Senior Account Executive, Magnitude Innowera 

Advances in automation technology are transforming business operations. Many organizations are finding that supply chain, finance, and HR processes can be dramatically improved by using SAP data management tools equipped with Robotic Process Automation (RPA) capabilities. Join this session to uncover SAP automation strategies that go beyond generic toolsets. Learn how the world’s largest enterprises are creating new efficiencies and boosting business results by shifting to SAP-centric RPA solutions to increase productivity and improve data quality.

In this session, we will:

• Offer expert advice for addressing potential data management challenges within SAP
• Discuss the opportunities RPA enabled technologies can offer
• Review real-world examples of complex SAP processes seamlessly executed based on user criteria
• Demonstrate how RPA enabled tools can easily help digitally transform business operations

Transform Supply Chain and Financial Operations with Cross-Functional Analytics: The GKN Story 

Wednesday November 18 | 1:00 PM ET 

Speakers:

• Richard den Ouden, Director Business Development, Magnitude Every Angle
• Regina Howell, SAP Master Data Specialist, GKN Automotive

Many organizations struggle to translate their SAP data into actionable insights. Learn how GKN Automotive, the world’s largest supplier of driveline technologies to the automotive industry, has transformed its supply chain and optimized its systems by incorporating operational and financial analytics. This cross-functional reporting strategy enables the organization to focus on improving enterprise-wide KPIs and make smarter business decisions.

GKN Automotive will explain how it was able to gain control of and visualize its SAP data to:

• Solve supply chain and financial issues before they impact the business
• Unlock the power of enterprise data to turn insights into action
• Improve operational efficiencies that require timely access to impactful data

Learn more about our data management and productivity solutions for SAP-run businesses here.

The post Maximize your SAP technology investments with Magnitude solutions appeared first on Magnitude.